Tuesday, May 5, 2009

That Unforgettable Malaysia Cup Win in 1977!

In my recent post I blogged about old news clippings from my precious archives collection. I showed a portion of a front page colour photo and posed some questions.Here are the full details:The excited crowd of loyal supporters was at the Singapore Airport to welcome home our Malaysia Cup heroes of 1977.They were all hoping to get not just a glimpse but a touch of the most coveted soccer trophy in our local history...the glittering Malaysia Cup.I was there as well among the crowd.As a matter of fact I was also at the Merdeka Stadium for this most incredible Cup Final on Saturday May 28 1977. It was the only Cup Final across the causeway that I ever attended. So much happened that day that unk Dicko will relate more in another post. Back to the main story for now.

All of Singapore waited 12 long years for that day to happen, for their collective dreams to be realised in the 105th minute of extra time when our "speed demon" Quah Kim Song headed in the winning goal after the score was deadlocked at 2-2....to make it a historic 3-2 win over our arch rivals Penang.Coach, the late unk CHOO SENG QUEE will never, ever be forgotten by the grateful fans of that generation.Photo:Dollah Kassim the "Gelek King"hugging his then girl-friend with one hand on the cup and S.S. Dhillion [ sec-gen SNOC ] holding on too. Dollah was made captain in the 2nd half after Captain Samad Alapitchay was substituted by Lee Teng Sai. It was super -sub Nasir Jalil [ crazy horse] who came on for S Rajagopal [ banana kick specialist...aka the Camel] who equalised for S'pore in the 71st minute for a 2-2 scoreline.The last time before that day when we won was way back in 1965 when Lee Kok Seng was the captain fantastic who motivated his team mates to snatch a great victory in the last 15 minutes of the game...winning 3-1, after trailing 0-1 for most of the match.

5 comments:

I was there too. There were tension in the stadium. Luckily Singapore supporters were separated from the Malaysians. Still missiles flew towards our side. After the game our buses had to leave quickly.

What a coincidence Philip!That we were both there that memorable day or rather night...some 32 years ago!But I was not seated with our Singapore supporters as I had earlier visited my very close KL friends who knew beforehand what might possibly happen to us S'poreans. As a result, I was ensconced with the M'sian supporters and did not get the terrible treatment dished out to so many S'pore fans.One of those who suffered that fateful day was my wife's cousin. He was among quite a number who were arrested for committing the "crime" of shouting " REFEREE KAYU!" very loudly and vehemently.They were taken away to the police stations and had most of their possessions confiscated...including raincoats and umbrellas! And they missed almost the entire game since they were not released until the next day. They were all MAD AS HELL!I had bumped into him earlier before the game and did not know his fate until much,much later.Did you recall it was raining cats and dogs before the game started?

Yes, Mediacorps must have inherited all the archive footage of incredibly entertaining matches and games from the previous Radio and TV Singapore.I fully agree that such matches with great historic significance should be aired again..so that our younger generation can appreciate what it was like in the past and the old-timers can relive those glorious occasions again.Mediacorps can do it if they want to. But in reality, I have not seen any re-run of any of our great matches on our TV be they soccer or badminton.Perhaps,a public petition can be started to push for this?